Scientology Shill Joy Villa Plays the Trump Card

Unabashed self-promoter and scientology pitch-woman Joy Villa has cashed in on political divisiveness to make a killing from unsuspecting Trump supporters.

Ms. Villa has previously attempted to attract attention at the Grammy’s by wearing various forms of see-through attire. Her virtual nakedness didn’t garner a lot of attention other than to get her onto the “worst-dressed” list.

But this year, she hit on a brilliant scheme, marketing herself as a walking advertisement for Donald Trump.

In a town and industry that has little love for anything Republican, and plenty of outright disdain and hatred for Donald Trump, Ms. Villa instantly had Trump supporters rushing to defend her, of course without knowing anything other than “She wore a dress in support of the President.”

When I noted that she was a scientology shill on Twitter, one person responded by decrying the scanty “vagina-chains” sported by Lady Gaga and others noted the “scarecrow” look of Katy Perry, never mind the hated Beyonce’s outfit — apparently supporting Ms. Villa for her demure outfit because it fit better with the middle-American ideal of proper attire for TV. Clearly, they didn’t check out her earlier less successful outfits — one of which looks like it was sewed together from snowfence they put at the edge of ski runs to prevent wayward skiers from plunging into the pine trees. And this stuff is NOT hard to find, it is right on her twitter account. But as with much social media discourse, facts are irrelevant.

Nor did they seem to understand that she had previously categorized both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton as “crazy” and that people should write in a third party candidate (this tweet vanished once she realized she had tapped into the Trump brand).

And before that she was “feeling the Bern”:

Political correctness or incorrectness has become a new marketing tool. Republicans no longer shop at Nordstrom. Democrats no longer buy Trump ties/steak/water or whatever.

So, with her “statement” dress rousing Republicans to encourage downloading her songs on iTunes “for being a brave supporter of our President” she rocketed up the charts. Fox News was right onto the story.

And what is even crazier is that blind supporters of all things Trump (and to be sure there are those that just as unthinkingly support all things “anti-Trump”) did not know that Ms. Villa is a shill for scientology. And that she will capitalize on her 15 minutes of fame to promote herself (with the help of scientology) as a “#1 selling artist” (no longer the oddly self-titled “Grammy considered artist”). This newfound celebrity will be used to try and attract new people to scientology. On top of that, any money that comes in from her skyrocketing downloads will no doubt end up being given to scientology.

You will no doubt be able to see her in an upcoming edition of Celebrity mag, most likely on the cover. They have already used her on the cover once before and she was not even known at that time (other than as a “worst-dressed”).

She will deliver seminars to the unsuspecting at the Celebrity Center “how to become a #1 chart topper”… As with Celebrity Mag, they have already used her even when nobody had heard of her to try and get new people in to scientology:

The truth of the matter is that she, like every scientologist, puts scientology before politics (or anything else).

Her only true candidate was L. Ron Hubbard. Everything in the life of a scientologist like Joy Villa takes a distant second row to Hubbard and scientology.

In fact, it is 100% certain that if Gary Johnson or Jill Stein had said “I support scientology” they would have had not only Joy Villa’s vote, but ALL 5,000 scientologist votes in the US Presidential election. Same with Bernie Sanders. Or Donald Trump. Or Hillary Clinton. Scientologists are a ONE ISSUE electoral block. Scientology transcends and “trumps” all else in the minds of scientologists. And she is about as dedicated as you can get.

Ms. Villa is not only promoted on the official scientology website, she performs at numerous fundraisers.

And even on her twitter and instagram she promotes scientology whale Grant Cardone’s book.

In the end, you have to give her credit where credit is due.

She saw the fanaticism that has become part of daily life in this country and figured out how to play it to her advantage. Being a contrarian gets you a lot of attention. Apparently it works better than T&A these days.

Just watch scientology use this to promote themselves and how successful you can be if you embrace L. Ron Hubbard. Sigh…

Comments

Thanks for exposing Joy Villa Mike. NOBODY heard of this no name until she wore the Trump dress. This got this no name national attention and interest, even from Trump’s camp bc few in showbiz want to speak out unless they are liberals. Joy Villa disappeared for a while after she was exposed as a Scientologist. People and their short memories she is back infiltrating the NRA. Joy Villa is showing up at NRA conventions and CPAC claiming to be a proud NRA member. She is a shill for Scientology. If Villa showed up at a liberal event nobody would care bc she’s a D lister but at a conservative event like the NRA she’s a standout. She is a shill self-promoter.

Thank you for exposing Joy Villa as a fraud Scientologist, I remember when I noticed that she followed me on Twitter and I decided to used block to make her unfollowed me so I unblocked her. I may heard of her when she’s wearing a pro-Trump dress on Grammy, but now I already know she’s a Scientologist. Thank you for exposing her, Mr. Rinder.

Thank you for this exhaustive and fascinating account of Joy Villa and her relationship with Scientology and comically vain attempts to garner attention with weird dresses. I have long been wary of Scientology but after reading Lawence Wright’s Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief (2013), I am now vigilant about their cult. I don’t recall Villa being mentioned in Wright’s book and she is not listed in index.

I first saw Joy Villa’s Trump dress this morning on the web site run by her husband, Thorsten Overgaard, who is a photographer. If you go to his site you will witness an relentless barrage of self-promotion that has the air of narcissism laced with an unabashed love affair for bling.

I think the creation of the “Grammy considered artist” moniker speaks volumes about the way Overgaard and Villa operate.

I will give Overgaard his due on this point: he occasionally writes sensible articles about Leica and photography.

FYI:

The Story Behind That Picture: “My Wife Likes to Wear Dresses”
A little behind the scenes valentines story from the husband of Joy Villa

I learned all about Scientology many years ago when my supervisor at a CPA firm asked me to calculate how much a married couple with school aged children could donate to Scientology in order to be able to deduct it all for taxes in the first year. The kicker was they were going to refinance an almost paid for house in order to raise the cash for this contribution. When I told my boss I didn’t want to do so because the move was not financially prudent, he chewed me out. Not only was it what the client wanted, but I should not judge their religion. He then spoke some nonsense passed on to him by his Scientology clients that this contribution would help them reach the next stage of spiritual development, at which point they would become even more financially successful. I told him it all sounded like a scam to me. I left the discussion with the conclusion that to my supervisor, fees were more important than professional integrity. It was the beginning of the end for me at that firm.

I’ve seen my share of con games over the years. Scientology is the only one that has thrived by masking itself as a religion.

Well I feel like a complete duped idiot! I was proud to see someone in entertainment stand up for Trump. I bought her mini album to support her right to free speech. I feel so used! They weren’t her beliefs at all.

Mr Rinder, sir, please forgive me. I’m a disgruntled ass…I am sorry. Your blog is great, I should ignore postings that bug me, and I am sincerely sorry.
We all have issues – mine are sometimes public & in the wrong direction. Sorry.

Look for yourself at her tweets. Dates Nov 8, Oct15/ 16, Aug 23, July 19, June 2, Feb 23… It’s all there. I’ve seen it and have screenshots of my own. Unless she had a sudden change of heart and proof of her vote I don’t see her being a true Trump fan not as of what she tweeted Nov 8th. I wanted to believe it was true but after looking at her twitter page I think it was all for her own fame and record sales. Her twitter and Fb accounts before the dress had very few likes or comments on her posts. I would have to see proof of her vote at this point before I would believe her after all the “research” I’ve done.

I think there will be a time that we can take our attention off the bad in $cn, but that time is not now. There are just too many abuses that continue on within the cherch, too many lies that need to be exposed and too kids who need to understand that doing $cn in the corporate cherch truly is the road to perdition.

As I’ve mentioned before, I also experienced gains from some of the lower bridge auditing that I received, so I’m would never question the value that you place on yours.

It’s simply not truthful to expose the bad without also exposing the good. It’s lying by omission. It makes readers think that only the bad exists, and that anyone who thinks there’s also any good there is brainwashed.

People who deny the truth in this way seem to me to be only sightly less brainwashed than the Church’s kool-aid drinking true believers. With apologies to readers who don’t understand Scientology terminology, the fixated must-win on both sides is obviously a GPM dramatization.

The truth isn’t on either side. It’s above both sides.

As for those people who do see some good but believe it must be ignored until we have 100% vanquished the bad, I say nonsense. The bad will be vanquished faster if we also promote and do the good.

Then look for yourself at her tweets. Dates Nov 8, Oct15/ 16, Aug 23, July 19, June 2, Feb 23… It’s all there. I’ve seen it and have screenshots of my own. Unless she had a sudden change of heart and proof of her vote I don’t see her being a true Trump fan not as of what she tweeted Nov 8th.

M2C, I agree that in an ideal scene there would be balance. But let me share a few of my thoughts about the reality.

First, in the face of a longstanding and vast PR campaign started by Hubbard himself to lie about Dianetics and Scientology’s actual results and deny responsibility for anything bad, it could be said (though I’m not necessarily defending) that criticism is what bring overall balance even if it is not internally balanced. I think your real beef there lies with the CofS, who have so distorted the information environment, so why aren’t you and others invested in the issue organizing effectively to take the real source of the problem head on?

Secondly, on a blog like this I just don’t think it’s possible to be entirely balanced given time and space restraints. But there is a fairly continual acknowledgment that the initial and lower levels of Dianetics and Scientology may or even probably do provide some benefits.

Finally, what “good” are you talking about from Scientology? The only studies that have ever been done, show that Hubbard’s techniques don’t actually produce any real benefits – so allowing any presumption that they do, as above, a pretty generous concession. Scientology hasn’t allowed sociological research to be done on its membership, like other religions have, to determine if members rank higher on scales like happiness, health, or actual success in life, that might give use even the flimsiest of gauges about peripheral benefits. It’s even possible that proper research could show definitively that Dianetics and Scientology do not provide any benefits beyond the placebo effect and the normal personal growth that people would have experienced in their own lives as a matter of course; or even that significant psychological harm done outweighs any minor benefits and that potentially dangerous thought reform and “brainwashing” techniques are at work. Similarly, in real science, new procedures and treatments (including medicines) under test sometimes work quite well for a few people, but do quite the opposite for many others, and so have to be banned because of their unreliability. So you could even say that it borders on irresponsible to talk about any anecdotal or hypothetical “good” in Scientology in the face of documented (and court-proven) abuses and harms, unless someone does actually finally come up with some science to prove quantifiable benefits, and a balance of benefit.

I guess I will sum that up in a way that some may consider lacking in intellectual rigor, but that I think is a fair response to the underlying illogic of unverified claims: prove to us that Scientology doesn’t involve harmful brainwashing or thought reform, or at least that there is real evidence of actual benefits, and then and only then can we have a responsible discussion about possible “good.”

I am actually interested to see some fair treatment of the subject in the end, but after several decades of waiting in vain for the independents and interested ex-members to get their act together while the abuses of the CofS go on and even escalate, my patience has worn thin.

Peacemaker, before I became involved in Scientology almost 50 years ago I studied and participated in several varieties of psychotherapy, including Cognitive, Freudian, Jungian, and Rogerian. I didn’t get any gains from any of them. Then I tried Scientology auditing and got spectacular gains in just a few hours.

My Rogerian therapist had gotten her Ph.D. directly under Carl Rogers, and had participated in a study that “found” that Dianetics doesn’t work. I asked her what was actually done in the study, and what she told me included gross violations of the Auditors Code that would prevent any Dianetic or Scientology process from working.

The introduction to the book Science of Survival by LRH contains before and after results of Dianetic auditing as determined by psychology’s own Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Analysis, which showed substantial gains. When I made copies and distributed them to all the psychology professors at a nearby, very-big-name university, not one of those “experts” showed any interest whatsoever.

I’m not saying that there’s no value in the subject of psychology or full-blown scientific method. But people who don’t understand a subject can’t be expected to design, perform, or replicate valid tests of it.

M2C, interesting background, thanks for sharing that. Mine is rather similar in many ways. That’s why I do, when ever I think of it and it fits, allow that some of the lower-level Dianetic processes probably do produce some benefits. I also have some personal experience suggesting to me that there might be some “workability” to some more sophisticated pieces that are probably genuinely Hubbard’s innovations, but I would want to qualify that a lot and it is much too complicated a subject to get into here, as well as being all but irrelevant when the subject here is the larger abuses going on.

I’m always suspicious of the claims that Dn/Scn hasn’t worked because it hasn’t been applied or administered properly, but it sounds like you know your stuff and so in the instance of that one study it would not surprise me if you were right. As for the MMPAs in SoS, in wouldn’t surprised me if Hubbard had fudged those like he did so much else, but then again it also wouldn’t surprise me if those results could be obtained legitimately.

I actually think it’s really unfortunate that Dn/Scn hasn’t been studied better including, I’d agree, including people familiar enough with it to ensure that it was tested properly. But it hasn’t been, and that’s Hubbard’s fault to begin with and Scientology’s fault to this day – with the possible exception of Sarge Gerbode and his work.

As I’m guessing you know if you are familiar with scientific research, the gains you got from Scientology auditing could be a rare genuine case of positive benefits, or even a fluke or coincidence. And as I pointed out with the example of medical procedures and treatments, sometimes they work quite well in a few cases but research shows that they have terrible effects in others, and that they can’t be administered safely and so have to be abandoned. I still think it’s fair to say that there’s no proof of benefits, and that until the long-overdue results of real research are actually produced, that any claims can rightly be dismissed, particular in the face of all the evidence of harm done by Scientology*.

* I would be tempted to qualify that to just the CofS, but at this point I’d like to see even the independents show some proper tracking of results including proper reporting of any adverse cases inclluding thorough follow-up to see what has happened with people who stop auditing. Where is even some real professional accountability from the indies?

Indies, both KSWers and non KSWers aren’t interested in proving anything to anybody. They have observed for themselves what works and doesn’t work in Scientology, and are simply moving forward with what works for them and their clients. New people are free to give it a try and continue or not, depending on the results. Some continue and some don’t. Some practitioners succeed and some don’t. Some advance the tech and some don’t. Ultimately the marketplace decides, as it should. What went wrong in the Church of Scientology was obstruction of this natural process.

M2C, they have observed what they may think works, but that may be quite different from what does or does not work. Human beings are subject to cognitive biases that can often lead them to false conclusions about what does or does not work, which is why for instance most people lose money when they try to invest in financial markets (they actually do worse than random, being prone for instance to hold on to losses too long and cash in gains too early).

As you admit with the CofS, the marketplace doesn’t always work. And it’s not just large organizations that can obstruct the “natural process,” but even small ones, as in the example of the tiny Heaven’s Gate cult that got dozens of people to commit suicide in order to ascend to a supposed UFO following a comet.

I really do wish that there was some good research about what works and what doesn’t, so that practitioners could have their day with anything that does work, and we could clearly identify what is unquestionably bunk. Sadly, even the independents don’t seem much interested in actual science, and seem unable to even organize to the extent of forming a professional organization with internal standards like all other legitimate therapies.

Peacemaker, indies don’t have the financial resources to do the kind of full-blown scientific method research you’re calling for. So it’s useless to talk about it. Meanwhile we all reliably learn many things in a less formal way. And faulty experimental design is a lot more common than scientific method fans generally admit. Holding that scientific method is the only way to be sure of anything is itself a cognitive bias.

I used to live in the Clearwater area several decades ago. I heard stories and rumors about Co$, many of which were hard to vet for a variety of reasons. For one, no internet. Two, not nearly as many credible, high ranking defectors had come out in the open to challenge the claims it made or expose the abuses. I often had to rely on primary sources that could not publish openly. So awareness and general public opinion was nothing like it is today with the transparency we have available for former members. And the church was very busy either litigating or intimidating its critics into silence. But I quietly persisted until I had amassed enough corroborated or triangulated circumstantial evidence to feel confident most things I had heard were true.

When I told people about the things I had heard done to members or former members they thought I was making it up. They said it just sounded crazy or “out there”. They had not heard anything particularly negative about Co$, because not enough had appeared in print yet, so they assumed it just simply false. Primarily because it did not fit their impression of the organization (forgetting it had invested an inordinate amount of time and money neutralizing such impressions), and secondly because we as a country are superficially loathe to discriminate against religion.

Even after I told them stories about what happened to a family member that had been involved in exposing the methods the church used for critics, they found it hard to believe and tried to make it sound as if I must be exaggerating. The harassment this individual experienced was little compared to what actual members have gone through in separating from this organization, but those outside the organization brave enough to challenge it have also met with harassment, intimidation and disbelief because what they are saying just does not jive with what other people consider reasonable or correlating with previous impressions.

Fortunately this series has done a great job of collecting the ever-growing number of testimonials that corroborate such facts. All I want to say is that if ANYBODY makes claims about ANY organization, whether it is religious or corporate or political, don’t assume it’s Cuckoo Cloud Land just because it doesn’t fit a preconceived idea or impression you have, or does not fit it with limited personal experience or facts.

Be vigilant about all claims, political or otherwise. Start doing due diligence, research extensively and educate yourself from multiple sources of all persuasions. Learn to fact-check and discriminate among them for credibility or reliability or verifiable facts. And keep on researching. In the age of “alternative facts” and “fake news” we have hit a nadir of being “low-info” citizens. It’s dangerous. To people trapped in cults and to citizens of any nation in the world.

The two most taboo subjects in our society have been religion and politics (often because we assume the ideologies are both personal and disparate and unlikely to impact people personally). We have reached another juncture in history where they may not be as separate as we think and we may not have the luxury of being ostriches, of not examining all of our beliefs to see if they reflect an open mind, critical thinking and the willingness to espouse no ideology until it meets far more rigorous standards and analysis than we have lately shown to possess. It’s not about religion, it’s not about politics. It’s about mind control and handing over higher reasoning skills to others without a great deal of self-examination before we reach conclusions.
.

Too true, the battlefields of the world stand in testament to allowing others to do our thinking for us without due diligence.
Alas, the ability to accurately conclude circumstance from the evidence presented is a skill not many possess. Many prefer to believe whatever they are led to believe and are even willing to sacrifice everything for it. Politics and religion are indeed mind control mechanisms. It takes a special orientation for someone to rise to the top in either field but it takes being simply human to get swept along with it all.

“Just watch scientology use this to promote themselves and how successful you can be if you embrace L. Ron Hubbard. Sigh…”

Mike-
Thank you for providing the truth about Joy Villa. This truth will hopefully be the demise for future promotion of scientology. I knew something was odd when I saw the story, had NO idea who she really was. One of her twitter comments concerning her fashion choice : “Above all make a choice for tolerance and love.” WTF. Since when does CofS teach these virtues?

I appreciate your blog for not going down the political road so many other sites are keen to now days. Keep up the great work.

Mike, maybe it should just be “Deserved but not yet awarded Pulitzer Prize” with a palm for extra courageous duty in the service of compassion.

I got in big trouble over at that other underground blog for saying it, but Scientology is not really a right or left item. True, Hubbard called his enemies communists and wasn’t too happy with JFK and Roosevelt. But he also founded a utopian religion, with the stated objective of “clearing the planet”. Can’t get more “progressive” than that. Fact is, he was in it for the bucks and there are folks in every political flavor who would agree. Avarice thrives in every party.

For the highly ideologically aligned, everybody you don’t like is “on the other side”. No point in getting your righteous indignation all fired up against somebody that might end up voting for your candidate. For the partisan hacks the important thing is the party. Any chance that arises to trash the other side is an opportunity that can’t be missed.

Fortunately most of the real partisan hacks don’t bother trolling this comment section. Or Mike polices them. Either way it is refreshing to talk to folks on all sides about something important without degenerating to name calling. I don’t think anybody has a monopoly on truth and I’m willing to consider any cogently presented argument.

Except for Joy Villa’s dress. Do you think she really advises up-and-coming artists to get their sales by flaunting their bodies on the runway? With whatever political decoration will be sure to end up on the front page? You’d ask “what was she thinking” but with her religion the chance that she was thinking is pretty slight.

Bruce thank you. I always enjoy your comments. They often impart the wisdom of experience, and sometimes just wisdom from being a thoughtful, intelligent man.

I agree with you, it is hard to pigeonhole scientologists into “right” or “left” as there are parts of scientology ideology that fit both extremes. It’s why I said that scientologists are strictly one issue voters. It would not matter if they were democrat, republican, independent, communist or anarchist – if a candidate came out and overtly endorsed L. Ron Hubbard and/or scientology they would get every scientologist’s vote.

I think as a matter of practical experience there are likely more scientologists who identify with the fiscal policies of Conservatism. After psychs, Hubbard’s biggest boogie men were the IRS and “Government” in general. Less tax, less IRS and less government — and no welfare for the downstats — are pretty heavily ingrained in their minds.

Great comment Bruce. Political psychology, as well as religious psychology, has always intrigued me. From the little I’ve learned about current and former Scientologists, and based on some of the comments here and other place (like the commenters on Ortega’s site), it appears as though most current Scientologists identify with more conservative views and most former Scientologists identify with more liberal views, and I have been curious as to why this seems to be the trend.

I theorize that perhaps this is due to how current Scientologists identify with certain issues that more closely resemble the right, such as 1) unfettered freedom to practice religion, 2) a more skeptical view of government, and 3) views on the morality of homosexuality, among other things.

On the other hand, perhaps former Scientologists identify more with the left on certain issues, based on their experience in Scientology, such as: 1) deep understanding of how human rights abuses can damage the core of an individual, 2) skepticism of organized religion in general, particularly a church with an authoritarian structure, and 3) negative experiences from a mentality of taking things just on “faith” alone…..again, among other things.

I know it’s not a “cookie cutter” type of mentality for either current or former Scientologists, but it seems to be a very generalized political tilt based on some of my observations. I’m intrigued by how we all tend to view the world differently through our political persuasions. As someone who has never been a Scientologist, current or former, I’m curious about the thoughts of former Scientologists about this, and if perhaps I’m being way too general in how I view this, or if this seems to be a somewhat accurate trend.

Mick the last time I knew any sizable amount of scientologists in the church (~2005), the vast majority (~85%) were Dem. That was around 2005. The reason was easy. The VAST majority were boomers (or kids of boomers) who got into scamology because they were of a leftist counter culture. The only Repubs were pretty much a few very wealthy.

Thanks for the insight from an internal perspective Mike. I suppose that makes sense as well. Also the fact that the organization claims to protect the environment, promote human rights, and save the planet (although the organization as a whole certainly doesn’t practice any of those), which are all mostly liberal causes, that makes sense. I suppose that’s the danger in someone like me trying to classify a group when I’ve never personally had experience in actually sitting down and speaking with anyone from that group in an in-depth manner.

Yes Mick, you are right. The thing about those “liberal” causes is they show little immediate return to SELF. Despite all their talk about being humanitarians, most scientologists are preoccupied with MONEY. Few have enough to afford going up the Bridge unhindered. You see how many promotional items there are about making money and financial security in the Thursday Funnies. So, when the rubber meets the road, less taxes is a massive incentive.

When folks get out of Scientology, and actually work at jobs that don’t require medically dangerous schedules etc. they begin to wake up. Some just do a complete 180 degree flip. Whatever Hubbard said is now false and the opposite is true. Others just revert more to their natural bent. So perhaps that is why you see more on the left in the comment sections.

Or maybe it is just that the ones that lean right just don’t tend to get involved with online commenting and we never hear from them. Or they comment a few times, draw the wrath of the few intolerant lefties and never come back.

Reading that, it became obvious that it was written by Dave and was about some of my old friends. But it was terribly, horribly false and wrong. So I poked around the internet a bit and found Tony Ortega at the Village Voice. But I knew the Village Voice is a lefty loony rag so it was with great trepidation that I clicked on it.

It is well that I did click on it, and found Mike Rinder and others as well. I might have gone my whole life as a “my2cents” type, out in body but still in as far as beliefs go. Even after leaving it is hard to find the true information that will set you free of the Hubbard mindset. There is a very Christian anti-cult text called “The Kingdom of the Cults” by Walter Martin. But it had Scientology so wrong it was not much use. You have to read Jon Atack and Russell Miller to get the real scoop, then tons of articles here and at the Underground Bunker.

And just keep your cool when they go off about politics. It’s bad enough to talk about religion all the time, to mix in politics as well makes for a rough ride. Violates both of the “rules to survive Thanksgiving with your whacked out relatives.” Rule 1: Don’t discuss politics. Rule 2 don’t discuss religion.

Thanks Bruce. I think you’re correct to a certain degree about folks who are more liberal actually commenting online more than folks who are more conservative. At a risk of over-generalizing here, liberals do tend to be more out-spoken about issues they disagree with and conservatives do tend to be more reserved by comparison. I know that’s not true for all liberals or conservatives, just a general tendency that I’ve observed. And I remember a few weeks ago someone at Ortega’s site who was a Trump supporter posting that he’s leaving because of quite a large number of anti-Trump comments people were making, which goes to your point about them leaving and no longer posting due to some comments by people on the left.

As to your difficulties in trying to get free of the Hubbard mindset, I can imagine it is difficult to completely stop thinking with the mindset of a Scientologist after leaving. I’m glad that it seems as though you have found the places to do so. If I ever decided to no longer identify as Christian as I have since birth, I would imagine that changing how I have chosen to believe my entire life would be very difficult as well.

I have no problem with anyone (like “my2cents”) who wants to continue to believe in the practices of Scientology (or really any other aspect of the “religion” for that matter), so long as those practices aren’t abusive (disconnection, fair game, RPF, child labor, etc.), although I do have basic concerns about trying to completely get rid of a person’s “reactive mind”…..or any part of their mind for that matter (whether it truly exists or not), which seems to be the overall purpose of Scientology/Dianetics (going “Clear”).

That’s why I’m personally starting to believe more and more that the entire philosophy of Scientology (which involves changing how a person’s mind works, and therefore, how they think) might be just as dangerous as the organization that promotes it. But I also understand that as a never-in, there are probably many misconceptions I might have regarding the practices of Scientology due to my current level of ignorance about the philosophy.

And you’re absolutely 100% correct that politics (and religion) can be extremely divisive. I just ignore over-the-top attacks and don’t lose my cool when discussing politics, because I usually have the ability (which seems at times to be rather unique, at least these days) to listen, contemplate, and truly understand both sides of most arguments (I still don’t know whether to consider that a “blessing” or a “curse”). I would probably be classified as a Libertarian by most others, although I don’t feel I belong to any particular “label”, because I look at every single issue as pretty much being on its own little island, regardless of what either party is supposed to “think” about it, and I decide what I believe is the best stance for that individual issue. I wish more folks could discuss these issues civilly without going round and round in their typical circles and slinging mud at each other, which really only serves to accomplish getting everyone dirty……and pissed off. But that’s like hoping that David Miscavige actually comes out one day and publicly admits to and apologizes to his victims for all of the abuses of CoS under his leadership.

Mike, I am listening again to the Ted Koeppel interview with David M over at Tony’s blog. David makes many accusations and statements. I’d love to see you do an article where you take his statements one by one and tell us what is true and what isn’t true and how they can be debunked. Now that you are out and have looked and researched, can you tell us which things DM was lying about? It would make a most interesting article.

Bruce, I agree that fundamentally, this isn’t really about “right or left.”

But I also agree with Mike that the current demographic of CofS members skews conservative, as shown recently in the voting patterns in their stronghold precinct in LA.

And Mick, what I theorize below, if correct, would explain a seeming political shift among Scientologists. I also think it explains an ideological shift in Scientology, and why some of the boomers view the late 60s, 70s, and early 80s as sort of a golden era in Scientology’s orgs and missions, but are then puzzled and grasping to explain what happened subsequently.

I would peg Hubbard as having been a libertarian with a conservative bent. But I think that especially during the 60s and 70s, Scientology was flooded with a lot of the idealistic young people of the time who may have tended to be more socially and politically liberal, and seem to have had a more progressive take on what Hubbard and Scientology were teaching. Then, as Hubbard’s more orthodox ideology was imposed throughout the organization by the Sea Org, the active membership also probably started to become more like him politically.

So I would suspect that older and UTR members, and particularly ex-members and independents, might be more politically liberal than most active members of the CofS. But I no longer have much contact with those groups, what do others in a better position to evaluate that think?

Peacemaker, could the shift in political leanings of the organization after the “golden era” in the 80’s be a result of David Miscavige himself? I know LRH wrote all of the policies (some of them I would consider pretty authoritarian or even totalitarian in nature), but it seems DM took those teachings and put them on steroids……unless he needed to scale back a bit (at least publicly) to try to make the group more “relatable” to the general public.

Mick, after putting quite a bit of thought and effort into analyzing the situation, I would say that Miscavige is “duplicating” Hubbard more than not – and I see that a lot of other people have come to largely the same conclusion. I think that he continued the re-imposition of Hubbardian orthodoxy throughout the organization that had started towards the end of Hubbard’s lifetime, though a bit “on steroids,” yes. I think that mindset of CofS members, ideologically and politically, is more closely reflective of that of Hubbard himself than it was from the 1960s through the early 1980s where there was a flood of idealistic boomers who were lured by Hubbard’s most idealistic pronouncements and were ignorant of (or ignored) signs of Hubbard’s real leanings.

Let me just say that there have been multiple instances in history, particularly in the last 100 years, where popular figures have arisen whose followers read in to a leaders’ pronouncements what they wanted to hear, and dismissed darker aspects that later turned out to actually reflect those figures’ real agenda. Part of my interest in Scientology, besides some personal aspects, is that I think it presents an important example of several things that we need to beware of going into the 21st century.

reminds me of the laughs Carol Burnett got when she wore the curtain rod and curtains as a dress in the spoof on “Gone With the Wind.” The church is at the bottom of the barrel on celebrities when they promote “was once considered for a grammy” people. Where is Tom during all this? Why has he been uncharacteristically quiet? Maybe he knows that any connection with Scn will hurt his career.

I remember THAT Cindy…..people literally were in tears of laughter at Carol’s interpretation of Scarlett O’Hara’s outfit.
This outfit looks like a dress that accidentally fell into a paper shredder and she figured…Oh, what the heck, I’ll wear it anyway.
Thanks for the laugh Cindy…YOU made my day!!1

I’ve never heard of Joy Villa before this post (like most people it seems) so don’t really have much to add to the conversation about her in particular. I think she’s probably just trying to generate PR (and sales/money) for herself, which, as Mike has already pointed out, will probably just go right back into Scientology.

But from what I’ve learned about Scientology, could she also possibly be trying to engage in a bit of “safe-pointing” to Trump and his supporters (and indirectly, to the Republican controlled Congress) at the request of DM or the upper-CoS management? Since Trump and Republicans hold the Presidency and Congress, it seems as though CoS could possibly be trying to show Scientologists’ support for these people/party who have power in this country at this time, in the hopes that these particular leaders won’t investigate the human rights abuses of this so-called “church”. This seems especially necessary at this particular point in time, considering the massive “black PR” that the church is currently experiencing due to Leah’s and Mike’s show.

Looks like a double bank shot, the way you describe it. I think that there is zero crossover potential between the Trump dress and Scientology promotion — except for Joy within Scientology circles. 99.99% of outsiders who take notice of the brief flurry of publicity about the dress will have no idea of any Scientology connection.

Thanks hgc. But my thought is that it wasn’t really for Scientology “promotion”, but perhaps so if one day Trump and/or the Republicans in Congress were to look into investigating Scientology (since the public exposure keeps getting more and more intense now), if this was perhaps a way of “safe-pointing” by a Scientologist trying to portray support to the people who actually have the power to call for these investigations. For example, if Trump ever receives a report on the organization with recommendations to investigate the group from one of his advisors, CoS may be hoping Trump gives pause in asking agencies to pursue the investigation because he had one of them so publicly support him.

Not being an American is a distinct advantage here but since I have just as many American family/relatives and friends as Australians I sigh too… you’ve got to be kidding me, do people actually pay attention to this crap? & it lures people into Scientology?? Oh my… makes me glad I’m old too.
It does remind of me the incredible advancements in soft plastic lure technology for fishing. Flashy, squiggly & weirdly colored objects cavorting around in strange dance like rituals actually attract attention. Who would have believed I would catch fish with something that is pale tomato red, blob shaped and resembles nothing living, but it works sometimes. This Joy Villa person in miniature has a place in my tackle box, any discount for 1/2 a dozen of ’em?

What do the ridiculous adventures of Joy Villa have to do with any of us finding and using workable methods of spiritual improvement from the various available sources inside or outside of Scientology?

Speaking of ‘asleep.’ Just noticed on Ortega’s site the trouble the Garcia’s are continuing to have in finding Scientologists in good standing to help arbitrate for them as it gets more & more complicated for them with their disagreements/fraud claim against the Cof$. The recent court document presented by Scientology uses the fact no one can be in good standing unless they are actively receiving auditing & or training services (in a reasonable period of time one imagines for the judge to be able to comprehend Scientology’s Policy on attendance and activity expected within the Church by all it’s members. Hubbard did say everyone does 2 1/2 hrs a day enhancement = POLICY!). Well… when was the last time David Miscavige had a session, completed a checksheet requirement or heavy forbid, did 25 hours in one week auditing in the chair? Hubbard audited every day, he was a Scientologist to the very end, if it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for Miscavige… It’s his personal per policy religious obligation for a Cleared Planet without wars etc isn’t it… well? Apparently not!
All Scientologist’s and their legal representatives are very much asleep and many critics of it are too apparently. Miscavige and his closest confidants, such as Muffins Dingaling are not either not Scientologists or it can be now proven legally they not in good standing… by their own admissions! So how can they legally or in this case ethically adjudicate who is a Scientologist in good standing? That’s a form of perjury isn’t it?

Well, it is not against any law for a church to lie, extort, bribe, murder, destroy and maim people. They have “rights” and it is covered under the “Religious Cloak”. This will be a mind fuck spin the Church of Scientology does to the Garcia’s.

This could go on for eternity unless you get a judge who has two brain cells he / she can rub together along with a dollop of common sense to see what the cult of Scientology is up to but I would not hold my breath.

Most judges have no balls to uphold the constitution unless it is protecting some criminal.

What a mind numbing concept to wrap your head around – justice. The criminal has more rights than their victims so it plays out more often than not. And who generally has more money to buy preferential legal representation? The criminally minded venture-er, for the system makes it not only possible but profitable to do so or be involved representing them. Those judges and lawyers that sit on the dark side of the fence playing the system aren’t human in my estimation but some sort of suited abomination (Muffins Dingaling is the perfect example of an evil lawyer). The dirty policeman is at least in fear of being caught, but the system above them thrives with impunity on basically the same thing. I truly hope the Garcia’s get a lucky break in all the crap they’ve found themselves neck deep in, they are good people.

I haven’t noticed that Mike’s mission with this blog has ever been “finding and using workable methods of spiritual improvement.” It is mostly devoted to exposing, analyzing, discussing and mocking the abuses and lies of the Church of Scientology. Being a 7-postings per week blog, there’s even room for some fun, like today’s post. If you want to attain spiritual improvement, might I suggest the Hare Krishnas? Or Raelians. Or Kabbalah Center. Or Jesus Camp.

One thing I would start with is to recognize where you are verbalizing Scientology terminology, and free your mind from the spiritual bear trap it’s in the grip of. “Workable methods” and “spiritual improvement” are fictional constructs that you have been sold at the cost of your wealth and your sanity. Do yourself a favor and police your speech for terms that are spoken only by Scientologists. Eliminate them from your vocabulary. If you want to express those same ideas, then find language that is common to most people. If there is no way to say it other than in Hubbard’s terms, then it’s probably not something you want in your noggin. That’s a necessary condition for your spiritual freedom. Good luck.

M2C and a few others here are still True Believers in the Holy Tek and, for the most part, believe that $cn was hijacked, perverted and squirreled by DM. The degree to which they believe in the Holy Tek’s supposedly 100% efficacy varies among them, but whenever the conversation turns to Elron’s very long history of sociopathic behavior they have almost nothing to say about the issue or about how DM’s behavior as cherch leader closely parallels that of the founder

To stick one’s head in the sand and remain in abject denial about these very serious issues is their choice to make, but doing so completely undermines the positions on $cn that they very often take. It often seems that their essential identity is so inextricably linked to $cn that to question it at the fundamental level that often occurs here makes them feel as if they are under personal attack and they end up responding either with ad hominem attacks or by arguing their points using logic that depends on the reader having already accepted some of the completely unsupported assertions that Elron made, thus making their arguments circular and ultimately grounded in nothing more substantial than Elron’s vast, but entirely made up space opera cosmology.

We continue to try and and engage in civil discussions with M2C and others here who are also still “deep in the Kool-Aid,” because the spell that’s cast my $cn can take a very deep hold on those who’ve come under it and it takes as long as it takes to become completely free of it. But, as always, if anyone of these folks can demonstrate any of the abilities or superhuman powers that Elron promised were 100% achievable, then I’m always open to new evidence and willing to modify my conclusions…any takers?

“…whenever the conversation turns to Elron’s very long history of sociopathic behavior they have almost nothing to say about the issue or about how DM’s behavior as cherch leader closely parallels that of the founder.”

Personally, I don’t find it beneficial or even necessary to carry on continuous rants about about a man who you even agree had serious mental problems – including as one of the rants about him that he lacked compassion.

marildi, I assume you are referring to Hubbard in that last paragraph – it’s not entirely clear to me.

Regardless, as to Hubbard, particularly since this blog continually gets new visitors, I think it’s worthwhile to make periodic restatements about Hubbard and Scientology’s background and how that explains the CofS and its leadership today. And the point that Scientology’s issues trace back to Hubbard’s longstanding personality and psychological disorders, is an important and illustrative one that I’ve only come to fully appreciate recently, thanks in good part to a lot of insightful commentary. That does even speak to some questions I had about the “tech,” where and how things went wrong, and what we might do regarding anything that might be of some possible value in Hubbard’s work.

Also, on this blog whose topic is doing something about the abuses of the CofS, it can seem like excuse-making and apologism when commenters come along and want to talk about supposed positive aspects, though perhaps their intent is misinterpreted in some cases. What would you suggest that we do to address the abuses of the CofS, while appropriately keeping in context their origins with the “despotic leader” Hubbard who “created, or contributed to the creation of, an organisation which quickly became a monster”? (to quote an old-time scientologist and erstwhile Hubbard confidant who is apparently a favorite of yours)

Peace Maker, the answer to your question is simple but very difficult to implement. Someone needs to go through everything LRH said or wrote, and rewrite it in condensed, textbook format, with everything removed that led to the abuses and lack of results of which people complain, as well as every element of sociopathy, cultism, and low-tonedness. All trademarks and copyrighted material replaced. Then allow and encourage auditors to do their own research and development to improve the tech. Yes, this would eliminate LRH as an infallible guru, but that was always a two-sided coin.

Geezers! How would one work that out? Getting to redo Dianetics to remove the impossible claims after seeing if Excalbur has faults, then rewrite the R&Ds next I suppose – good luck with that! The PABs would be next in line…Oh forgot about the tapes… SOS, Adv Procedure & Axioms, the Professional Crse era,SOPs PDCs – good God! that’s not even considering Green on White just up the track.
I’m busy that weekend anyway.

When approaching something like the idea of getting down to Scientology’s essentials, I always look for a reality check of sorts. In this case that is, if it’s doable then why haven’t independent Scientologists and the “freezone” done it in the last half century?

That said, my analysis is that a project like that would have to end up throwing out everything from day one, book one (Dianetics) on because it is all is filled with falsehoods such as about “research” not actually performed, and warped by Hubbard’s obsessions with things like abortion and sexuality. One would have to start by going back and thoroughly researching and fully understanding all of Hubbard’s often unacknowledged sources and inspirations, and only then analyzing what possibly unique interpretations and applications he might have made from those, before even being able to proceed with putting something together.

I estimate that to actually do a thorough reconstruction, including assembling a cross disciplinary team with truly thorough knowledge in all the subjects that Hubbard drew on from abreaction therapy to Zen Buddhism, and doing all the research that Hubbard should have (but often deceitfully claimed to have) done in order to properly validate the work, would take at least 2 to 3 decades at a cost in the tens of millions of dollars if not approaching a hundred million. And after all that the risk would be coming to the same conclusion as the other few scientific studies that have been done, that there are no actual results being produced other than the placebo effect. Or, that like Serge Gerbode’s Traumatic Incident Reduction (TIR, based on largely the same principles as Hubbard’s work), the results wouldn’t stand out as particularly more effective than any of a variety of modern therapies available (EMDR, hypnotherapy, various approaches to talk therapy, etc.). Plus by the time any such effort might be accomplished, there could be groundbreaking new discoveries in areas like functional MRI (FMRI) that would totally eclipse it.

Sorry to be a downer, as they say, but I think this is actually the realistic assessment of what it would take. And I think that goes towards explaining why many people, having started to dig down into the problem, have essentially just thrown up their hands and walked away.

It’s sad, too, that the Hubbard Dianetics Research Foundation didn’t do what its name implies that it ought to have have, and used the hundreds of millions of dollars extracted from so much sweat and tears and instead stored in Swiss bank vaults (a vast amount of which may actually have been lost due to Hubbard’s egotistic greed)* to address these matters long ago. We probably would have at least learned something of value that might perhaps at least have contributed in minor ways to other efforts like Ken Wilber’s work in Integral Theory.

* technically, it actually ended up accumulating in Luxembourg, where according to fairly reliable reports and possibly even secret Scientology admissions to the IRS, much of it was lost when Hubbard took the information to access numbered bank accounts with him to his grave

My 2 Cents – In my observation, trained auditors (under the original tech) do exactly that. The courses as Hubbard designed them are not hard. The basics are simple. Even a rote auditor can get results if he follows the instructions, but the experienced auditor develops and improves. The critical thing I’ve noticed is to actually listen to the PC and differentiate between what is obviously a dramatization of something, and what must be heard. The C/S plays a critical role as well, but it is necessary to make an assessment of the PC, just as one does with people one meets.

Nickname, that is well put and I think you are onto something there, but it looks to me like you’re really just talking about the essentials of talk therapy that anyone with natural listening skills and/or good training can accomplish regardless of methodology. I’ve noticed that other auditors with a lot of experience who’ve said largely the same thing you have here, have also said at that point of breaking things down, a good auditor doesn’t really even need the e-meter, either. So is there really anything left that’s particularly unique to Hubbard and Scientology, or are you just doing a fairly non-distinct talk therapy that’s not necessarily much different than many others?

One of the other questions that comes to mind about the “original tech,” is how much of what worked was not Hubbard’s design but the contributions of others who may have not been given proper credit to begin with and whose names were finally expunged totally? Was part of what eventually went wrong, that the workable product of others was taken out and replaced with Hubbard designs that were not so effective, or even defective?

Which reminds me, any truly comprehensive project to reconstruct Dianetics and Scientology would have to get into figuring out the exact contributions of Hubbard’s various collaborators and contributors. You’d have to do things like go through the bulletins and archives of the California Association of Dianetic Auditors (CADA) and interview as many old-timers as possible.

On that account, wouldn’t it be interesting if it turned out that Hubbard was actually the factor that had to be weeded out of Dianetics and Scientology to get it down to workable essentials?

What a truly remarkable thread.
I guess the inclination still remains, and that’s per Hubbard too if you know anything about what he said and taught in 51/52 on the Professional Course, is all you need is the Qs, Logics & Axioms. Maybe a few scales are useful, but the rest of the subject should be able to be extrapolated from the basic data. It’s not called the Qs, Logics and Axioms for nothing. Not having a good grasp of those makes the subject look like what it is today – a sick sort of practical joke!
I still maintain that probably the most important piece tech apart from the above to know and know well if you want to follow or research Scientology is Rehab tech, otherwise you’ll be chasing your own tail for the rest of time or until the lights go out!

I Y, even the Qs, Logics and Axioms are problematic, though they do contain some interesting material and of course an outline of Hubbard’s philosophy of the time. Perhaps the issues are most obvious in the Axioms, which by their nature are supposed to be self-evident, and yet in many cases are nearly impenetrable and interpreted (or interpretable) in many different ways.

Perhaps the most glaring flaw, related to a topic discussed here recently, is that one of the axioms refers to the G.E. or Genetic Entity, a concept that Hubbard apparently failed to fully develop and then abandoned. Why was that left in there and not corrected later, and what lurking issues are there of similar magnitude but maybe not quite as obvious? Once again that’s something that would need thorough investigation and cleanup, and what would it take to do yet another of the jobs that Hubbard failed to do himself originally? Or do you revive the Genetic Entity and try to flesh the concept out the way you think that Hubbard would have originally, assuming that his abandonment of it is one of the problems that occurred as his work progressed and sometimes deteriorated?

My 2 Cents, for some strange reason a poster named Tom posted a reply to your comment above on the thread that follows this one. Since you haven’t posted any comments on that thread, you wouldn’t get the notification, and I’m interested in what you have to say about his comment. He seems to think what you described has been done already. Here’s the link to his comment: http://www.mikerindersblog.org/fun-facts-from-aola/#comment-164926

Mike, 2 Cents, Surfer – Hope this comment gets on the right thread. Re: financing the necessary research to distill Scn down to a manageable and informational text…. maybe there is a creative post-grad student that could find a grant for that kind of research.

Well, if he was not the sole and infallible source of all of $cn’s doctrines, rules and practices then it wouldn’t be so important to debunk the many lies, myths and revisionist history concerning his life. The fact that he was and continues to be considered infallible Source by many means that there’s more work to do.

I’ve been out for aa very long time, and didn’t have my life and family destroyed when I was in, so I’m not writing in anger or continuous on about Elron. However, I do feel it’s important to expose the depths of Elron’s sociopathy because it lives on and has been amplified in DM. Indeed, it’s very hard to imagine $cn as ever having any other kind of basic character than the one that they both imparted to it.

HF, my comment was in reply to what you had written regarding “The fact that he was and continues to be considered infallible Source” – which clearly does not refer to the “many” dropping by, rather to those who are still connected to the church. And as I said, those are the ones who don’t post here. This is why I don’t buy your reasons.

The naivete of some people amazes me. The standard tech was the product of probably millions of auditing hours, and many people contributed ideas. The TR’s (Training Routines) for example were not Hubbard’s idea. They came out of a study born of frustration that HE managed to get consistently better results on PC of any level than anyone else. Hubbard approved them, and it went under the rubber stamp, just like new discoveries at and labs or research facility. New light bulbs out of GE (or wherever they came from) get the GE label. I’m sure I will find I have been incredibly naive in some areas, but I’m not going to then sit around and repeat the same naivete over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, pretending I’m smart.

You are f’ing hilarious Nickname. You should do stand up. Make sure you bring all the research notes from those “millions” of hours of “research”. LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seeking destruction of critics has the effect of people seeking destruction of the one who started this philosophy of intellectual tyranny.
The one who put this ball into play is Ron himself. Radical criticism of Ron is simply a mirror image of what he created: radical destruction of critics.

What you are experiencing Marildi is simply the effect of Ron’s cause.

Brian: “What you are experiencing Marildi is simply the effect of Ron’s cause. If he preached love and kindness you’d be hearing the same.”

Sorry, Brian. I think you’re fooling yourself. You’re making the very same mistake Hubbard made – i.e. operatiang on “the ends justify the means.” You should be forwarding love and kindness in your own words and deeds, and I don’t believe that continual bashing of any human being is doing that.

Seeing the dark side of something or someone is not anti love. That is a false understanding of love and compassion.
Love can be fierce when pointing out the truth.
Love is not stupid and in denial of reality.

It is not necessary to hate in order to observe and know what is before us.

Seeing what is true is not anti compassion. That is a misunderstanding of love and compassion.

Brian: “Seeing the dark side of something or someone is not anti love.”

Of course not. But we aren’t talking about simply “seeing” the dark side. Or “pointing out the truth,” or the opposite of being “in denial of reality.” These are all euphemisms and justifications for unrelenting criticism.

Tell me this, what would Paramahansa Yogananda do? What would he say about continuous, harsh criticism – of anyone, no matter how “bad” you consider the person to be? I highly doubt he would condone it for a moment.

Maybe not hateful, but obsessive…? You can answer that yourself – considering the following scale:
————————————–
Interest
Desire
Enforce
Inhibit
Unknow

“This scale also is found to invert—similar to the Dynamics, and below sanity on any subject. Thus:

Unknow
Inhibit
Enforce
Desire
Interest

“These points, particularly on the inverted scale, going down, are lowered by failure. Each lower step is an explanation to justify having failed with the upper level.

“One seeks to not know something and fails. One then seeks to inhibit it and fails. Therefore one seeks to enforce it and fails. Thus one explains by desiring it and fails. And not really being able to have it, shows thereafter an obsessive interest in it.” (Scn 0-8)
——————————————-

So, how does this “work” then? The “inverted” scale doesn’t even include “interest” and ends at the bottom with “KNOW” not “Unknow”…

Frankly, quoting this sort of stuff to try and “prove” something is absurd. Do you believe that a quote from L. Ron Hubbard makes something a fact?

For every L. Ron Hubbard quote that “proves” something there is an L. Ron Hubbard quote that can “prove” the opposite. Meaning of course, that they prove nothing and simply opinions which he changed. And he is perfectly free to do so. But don’t get caught thinking that because he said something it is a fact.

Mike: “So, how does this ‘work’ then? The ‘inverted’ scale doesn’t even include ‘interest’ and ends at the bottom with KNOW’ not ‘Unknow’…”

The scale shown before the one I quoted is:

Curiosity
Desire
Enforce
Inhibit
Unknown

And the line between that scale and the one I quoted states: “To make these agree in intention they would become…” In other words, Curiosity was changed to Interest.

Mike: “Frankly, quoting this sort of stuff to try and ‘prove’ something is absurd. Do you believe that a quote from L. Ron Hubbard makes something a fact?”

No, I don’t, Mike. That’s why I said Brian could answer himself – he might or might not see that he went down that scale – and if he did go down it, and were honest with himself, he would admit it, at least to himself.

Harpoona, let me state officially for the record that I believe that LRH was deeply flawed, and that as a result his “standard tech” contained major errors, and that these flaws and errors opened the door to abuses and actively encouraged them.

So I’m not the true believer, kool-aid drinker, or intellectual fool you accuse me of being.

On the other hand, I did personally experience a lot of good results in Scientology along with the bad. And far from being unable to confront the bad as you assert, I’m SO able to confront it that my attention isn’t stuck on it. Therefore I’m able to admit the good.

That extends to my viewpoint on other practices, too, several of which I’ve studied and practiced over the years. Deep under all of them is a hidden subject we might call “the-real-truth-ology,” that is what we are all really seeking, regardless of which philosophy, therapy, or religion we’re currently following or looking into or doing or best to destroy.

Thing is, I like some scientology phrases. I find them quite useful. My most oft-used one is “coms.” Where I used to excruciatingly describe “I met with so-and-so,” or “I received an email from so-and-so,” now it’s coms with everyone. “This 5 hour billing includes coms with the project manager.”

It’s part of the indoctrination and programming that scn imprints with coined words, a belief that I know something that another doesn’t, a not examined arrogance. (Not saying that’s where you’re coming from – you’ve been around too long – laughter)

Positive and negative life force, energy, spirit and so on have been examined by humans since we started thinking, or at least since recorded history.

There may be some newly discovered or refined looks at parts of the psyche in scn, but I don’t think theta/entheta is one of them. 🙂

Richard: “Positive and negative life force, energy, spirit and so on have been examined by humans since we started thinking, or at least since recorded history.”

I wasn’t referring to the concept/meaning of the word “theta,” or saying that it was something new. It was the fact as a single word it encapsulates the whole idea of “reason, serenity, stability, happiness, cheerful emotion, persistence, and the other factors which man ordinarily considers desirable” (as defined in SOS). “Postive (or negative) life force” just doesn’t do it when we want to say, something is theta (or entheta). 😉

And no, my friend, I don’t feel I was indoctrinated or programmed to arrogantly believe I knew something others didn’t – and I don’t agree that this was the intention. My understanding was always that LRH coined words that would accurately and unambiguously represent various concepts in the subject of scientology. Perhaps your indoctrination has come about from reading too many blogs. 😀

Except that reading blogs is not indoctrination. You choose what to read, when to read, where to read, and if you agree with it or not. You are free to stop reading anytime, your choice. You can openly disagree with what you read, or agree in whole or part. You can hold it up to the light and examine what is said, see it clearly. You are never forced to agree with the majority.

Indoctrination, on the other hand is a system of belief that follows a set course intended to persuade you, convince you, in uniform order, step-by-step, of the rightness or validity of something. You must conform to what is presented as the truth.You are not free to discuss it with others, to express doubts, to question it, to talk freely about where you may disagree with it.

So reading blogs is not indoctrination. If a person finds themselves agreeing with a lot of what is posted, it is either because they have experienced the same thing, or have come to those conclusions objectively after reading the points and counter-points. No one held them down and made them read it and agree with it, or used extreme manipulation or psychological persuasion to get them to conform to it.

in·doc·tri·na·tion
inˌdäktrəˈnāSHən/
noun
the process of teaching a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically.

Well, TJ, I think it can indeed be indoctrination – just as any culture, large or small, can and does indoctrinate. And no one has to have “held them down and made them read it and agree with it, or used extreme manipulation or psychological persuasion to get them to conform to it.” It’s enough to be inundated with a given group think, for most people.

On many blogs, you can even observe the same talking points being used – with even the same wording – repeated over and over by posters. This is the same as other cultures, including ethnic and national ones.

You say: “Indoctrination, on the other hand is a system of belief that follows a set course intended to persuade you, convince you, in uniform order, step-by-step, of the rightness or validity of something. You must conform to what is presented as the truth.You are not free to discuss it with others, to express doubts, to question it, to talk freely about where you may disagree with it.”

That is actually a description of not just a culture but a cult, which the CoS obviously did become. However, not all indoctrination occurs in cults, as described above.

On the other hand, there is truth to what you say regarding the option in some cultures to “choose what to read, when to read, where to read, and if you agree with it or not. You are free to stop reading anytime, your choice. You can openly disagree with what you read, or agree in whole or part. You can hold it up to the light and examine what is said, see it clearly. You are never forced to agree with the majority.”

“(I should have known better than to get into a pro-con scn conversation.)”

Hey, Richard, my comment was simply about certain Scientology terms being useful and not always easy to say in non-Scn words – not whether ideas about Scientology or the mind are right or not. It was just a light-hearted observation. Sheesh. 😛

I occasionally use scio-speak on the blogs for fun, but it’s no longer a part of my thinking process unless I catch myself committing an overt or . . . or . . . oops, old habits die hard. I need to get out of my head and go do some MEST work.

I don’t suppose you’re going to rot your brain by the use of “coms,” It’s just a slight variation in the regular English word that expresses the same definition. I was more concerned with invented words (cognite) or repurposed words (ethics) that are used to imprison a Scientologist’s mind in exclusive jargon.

Incidentally, I have no issue with jargon in general. Jargon is quite useful within areas of specialty, for facilitating efficient communication, as in professions or hobbies. You have to take a look at what purpose is served by a system of jargon and decide if it is legitimate.

Cognite actually works quite well. Cognition is a long standing dictionary word. And virtually all sciences and specialties develop their own shorthand or jargon. I’ve been out for almost 40 years, still use some of the concepts and words and have yet to rot my brain nor find myself regularly misunderstood.

The key for me was to never assign to LRH, the auditor, the case supervisor or anyone else the gains and happiness I found early on. Yes, it WAS very different in the 60s and 70s. It was hardly perfect, but a lot of fun was to be had at the org and mission levels. Good friends, too, one of which I had lunch with yesterday after about 30 years of not seeing him.

And as I’ve said before, though Hubbard may well have plagiarized others, the information was still useful and “true” in many cases.

Hi thegman77 – I had a very similar experience, participating from around 1975 to the early 1980’s. Along with the parties and camaraderie, there were goals and purposes, but not the grim determination that came later. Regarding “it was hardly perfect”, as I recall there was little change on “The Bridge” until Dianetic Clear was “released”.

My 2 Cents. This post points to several major issues. First of all Joy Villa is a perfect example of a model Scientologist: tasteless, exploitive, crass, shallow, unartistic, mercenary and craving celebrity to get stroked by the cult
She is also a shining example of a scientology celeb who will never improve if she stays in the cult. I listened to her song. Absolute drivel by anyone’s standards. She’s been kicking around for more than a few years and she used a cheap disingenuous trick to get attention for her bad music.
Mikes blog today points out a major issue. Scientology exploits artists and celebrities. The goal is then for the artist to use his or her celebrity to promote Scientology and save the world. I guarantee that’s Joys motivation. An in the process the cult member loses their soul. That’s why Scientology celebs and artist careers have only one direction to go and that’s down.
My2Cents if you want to find workable spiritual solutions, do your f–king homework and stop criticizing someone whose helped thousands of people in and out of the cult get straight about the subject.

I’m certainly no lover of Hubbard’s system of administration (I despise it) and his alleged Bridge from the mid 60s was rewritten as a circular trap for money and power acquisition imo. The formation of the Sea Org was a suppressive act of some magnitude & does it all lead to Total Freedom to blame and forever audit space cooties and that makes you cause over life – I don’t think so, maybe in someone’s universe it does?? However, what does define a Scientologist? A belief… a hypnotized state, someone who believes that the Cof$ is saving the world, or is it a member in good standing, a Miscavige follower, someone who’ll do anything to save mankind from the destructive path it is on by believing Hubbard found the way out, what? I do ask a question of these celebrities, the big whales though and all people who call themselves Scientologists – can you audit and maintain a schedule of learning as your founder suggested rather strongly in policy? Or maybe being a Scientologist is better defined as the handing over of all your money and maybe a child or two? Maybe a status junkie? But, have you ever done the BC (and become a Duke of Scientology and do your auditing bit for the good of your fellow man? Oh! that’s right, the BC doesn’t exist anymore, oh my… that also cancels out CL8 and anything above that as well.The whole game of organised Scientology is complete bullshit and it continues to get worse every day. It could be suggested the one thing that is not in the Cof$ is actually Scientologists but rather a hybrid that doesn’t actually do anything except become miserable. It seems many definitions are extant among the posters here but I agree with Mike’s mission, to expose and end the abuses and criminality in that organisation but let the chips of Scientology fall where they may. Telling others how and what to think is a quicksand in itself.
Had more strong coffee this morning – end of rant!

To the degree that Mike actually helps people deprogram from the hypnotic and abusive side of Scientology, I think that’s a good thing. To the degree that he and certain others posting on his blog deny the good side of Scientology, I think that’s a bad thing.

To me the real issue isn’t whether Scientology as we experienced it was good or bad. The good and the bad are obvious to me, and don’t really need to be argued or celebrated much further. Been there, done that, thank yoiu very much.

The real issue is what are we going to do to achieve the spiritual goals we sought when we first decided to give Scientology a try. Isn’t that monumentally more important?

The real issue is what are we going to do to achieve the spiritual goals we sought when we first decided to give Scientology a try. Isn’t that monumentally more important?

Not even slightly to me. What is important to me is to try to undo the damage that has been done to people, reconnect families, return monies that were obtained under false pretenses and to avoid similar things happening in the future.

I think you have the wrong blog. You should probably be reading MS2 as that would be more aligned to what you are looking for.

“That’s why Scientology celebs and artist careers have only one direction to go and that’s down.” I think Chick Corea might heartily disagree with you, BKmole. He’s been at the top for a very long time and still seems to be there.

Corea was once an innovator filling huge venues. Return To Forever was the pinnacle of his success. Now he is just rehashing his earlier work. Have You been to his concerts lately? I have. Yes he’s a genius. A genius that is no longer growing.

My 2 Cents: “What do the ridiculous adventures of Joy Villa have to do with any of us finding and using workable methods of spiritual improvement from the various available sources inside or outside of Scientology?”

Not everyone who got into Scientology was interested in workable methods of spiritual improvement to begin with. I think that with some, the idea of spiritual improvement was actually egoistic.

Yes. They wanted super powers and they focus on not getting them. It isn’t good enough to have achieved life-changing gains by going Clear, for example – they complain because no one attained perfect memory, etc.

marilidi, good point. Hubbard himself and consequently Scientology were very ego-focused, one of the things that has been bothering me for quite a while and yet one that isn’t talked about much. I do think it is important, and not too esoteric a factor, as one of the lures that gets people into Scientology is appeal to the ego, or ego-stroking. Too be honest, I think that it’s perhaps less popular as a line of criticism because ex-members may still find that particular issue hits uncomfortably close to home (not to impugn any of the many presumably well-intentioned commenters on this particular blog).

One of the related troubling observations I’ve seen made, is that a lot of the Scientologists who were supposedly dedicating themselves to bettering the world and even saving mankind, when they quit then afterwards do any sort of alternative humanitarian or charitable work. It’s by no means true in all cases, but certainly another indicator of primarily selfish motivations for many.

Technically and perhaps a bit more esoterically, what I think is a particularly blatant example of egoism in Hubbard’s work, is that past-life auditing, dubious and possibly even dangerous anyway, is based on a theory (which it falsely treats as scientific truth) of individual reincarnation, which provides people with the allure of being able to claim to have been someone, often famous, in past lives. There are other longstanding beliefs or theories that I’m virtually certain that Hubbard would have been aware of, that are based on the idea that humans have the ability to tap in to a collective mind that may include memories of past human events. At least those models work better in explaining the phenomenon encountered in Scientology and other past life practices, that multiple people will have seemingly convincing “memories” that they were the same historical figure (Hitler, Cleopatra, Jesus, etc.) in a past life; I’m not saying it’s true or that I necessary believe it, just that in that context the collective theories explain more (like any good theory or model) and also reduce the possibly warping effects of individual ego involvement.

I think it’s fair for the purposes of a brief and general discussion to say that virtually all of the world’s religious and spiritual traditions regard the ego as something to be downplayed if not even transcended. Hubbard of course derided traditional practices as based on “implants,” and took the opposite approach of essentially holding that he had found the truth that unbridled ego was the path to spiritual freedom, aligning himself with less noble traditions such as the OTO of his proclaimed “good friend” the black magick guru Aleister Crowley.

Philosophically, egoism is an ethical theory “which claims that it is necessary and sufficient for an action to be morally right that it maximize one’s self-interest.” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). It’s essentially a personally-focused variation of utilitarianism, the ends-justifies-the-means philosophy that has often lead to amoral brutality and even of the enslavement of those deemed less worthy, which would seem to describe the current path of corporatized Scientology

No offense, but the address for this site is mikerindersblog.com. That means it’s “Mike Rinder’s blog”, and he can post whatever he wishes to post about. If he wants to post a 2-week series in meticulous detail of the inner workings of an antique Waterbury clock, so be it. I wouldn’t read those posts myself, but I don’t think it would be in good taste to make a sarcastic comment to the owner of this blog to show my personal disdain for what he wishes to do with his own website.

I can start my own blog if I wish and talk about whatever I want to talk about if I start to dislike reading this site. Either way, I find this particular post to be very on-topic with his blog anyway.

I think Mike’s one-liner takes it for all the replies to My 2 Cents. Brief and humorous and modest. But the question got some stuff going so I decided I’d add my “mind-numbing significance” (other than pointing out that the designer of the dress in question called up obvious images of very American overalls or coveralls).

My 2 Cents

“Wake me up when this blog gets back to issues of real importance.” A couple of years ago I quipped to my auditor, that if LRH couldn’t get through to them, what the heck makes me think I can? It’s about auditing. Blogs don’t audit. Data and discussion certainly have their place, and the more people talk about things that do matter, the most important things, the better off we all are. But best is to audit and let the PC come up with his own answers and blow charge so he can improve his answers.

Scientology, the data, discoveries, and philosophy and methodology, is a work of unparalleled genius, the most important and comprehensive single body of work ever done. But just like you you can’t walk into a Convention of X’s and start talking about Y’s without getting a bunch of flashback, you can’t walk into a bank and start talking about reason without the guard politely asking if you have an account at the bank and some banking to do?

Once upon a time in Enlightenment, everything was seen to relate to everything else. Philosophy and religion and designer dresses and politics, all interrelate. That’s obvious on the surface, and we refer to it is all part of society and the culture. It’s being able to see how that isn’t so obvious. There are twists and turns called aberration in those relationships. One gets to the top of the Bridge (original Bridge we know is the one LRH put together), and one does have a level of awareness of Source, and it may be that there Scientology seems to become almost entirely transparent, as if one could say, “Well, yeah … I did know all this … I mean, I am creating this.”

That’s not quite exact, though, because it ignores cause and effect. If there is such a thing as communication, then there is such a thing as cause and effect. Failure to recognize that, is where classical philosophy stumbled and became “modern philosophy”, or hyper-modern philosophy, or avante garde philosophy, or abstract philosophy. In my not-so-humble-opinion. Someone got around to the interesting consideration that a being creates everything, and instead of going to the real considerations, instead of looking, as Hubbard did, he went the opposite direction and started calling life imaginary – bypassing or not-is-ing everything and everyone, conceptually. And this despicable pig of a being Karl Marx, bypassed the goodness and individuality and creativity and independence of a being, and brought a plague of disasters and miseries to the world.

Scientology goes right to confront, and looking, and points out that when you see something as it really is, it vanishes. When you see the solution to a chess puzzle, the puzzle part of it vanishes because you now know the answer. That same principle applies to a whole class of things, but TO BE remains, and other beings remain, and cause and effect remain.

Truth, I guess one could say, doesn’t as-is because it is as-isness. The means don’t vanish with the accomplishment of ends.

One could look upon “insanity” as an “on-going conflict of interest”. A being opposed in some part or parts of the parties to the agreement are in conflict with the interests of another or other part or parts of parties to the agreement. In short, he doesn’t know what is right. You ask someone, “What is RIGHT?” as a general proposition, and he can tell you a lot of things that are “right” to him, such as “make money” or “my family” and so on, but he doesn’t have it together to define “right” in all things. The integrity of the being isn’t quite there. It’s a fairly simple concept, that we are all Created, as stated in The Factors of Scientology, and all made the decision TO BE, so we are the only reference point we have, so we, then, must be that which is “right”. Which is integrity, which is coordination of the parts just as someone walks and talks, which is what we aim for. And we aim for understanding. And all of this is getting right into Scientology. The thing that gets overlooked at times, is that integrity is in harmony with the being who must then, himself, be in harmony with Creation. There is something there. ,We refer to it as truth, or “right”. It is the subject of Ethics.

This blog is about the Co$ and its abuses and deviations from original Scientology. And it, too, relates to all other things. When there’s bad or wrong or aberration, one tries to put a stop to it. The trick is to not forget the viewpoint of right which preceded the viewpoint of bad. Then, when the bad is stopped, one can restore the right, or the good, as one has not forgotten what it was all about in the first place. (And people got off into all kinds of metaphors and semaphores on these things … when the storm passes, the clouds roll off and the sun shines on the fresh, green Earth. Working with admin scales, which are the template or the DNA of be-do-have and life and living and being, one is working with the interrelations of parts, and assembling sanity for oneself, the as-is-ing of conflicts of interest, and the clarification of intentions all across the board. One is dissipating the storm, and finding the humble splendor of one’s integrity.)

Nickname: “Working with admin scales, which are the template or the DNA of be-do-have and life and living and being, one is working with the interrelations of parts, and assembling sanity for oneself, the AS-IS-ING of conflicts of interest, and the clarification of intentions all across the board. One is dissipating the storm, and finding the humble splendor of one’s integrity.”

The above was a nice sum-up of your post – and your post was a nice sum-up of core Scientology.

You are so right – the very heart of its core is in the term “as-is-ness.” And the purpose of the tech (in both auditing and training) was to achieve as-is-ness in order to gradiently remove the untruths so as to uncover Truth – the basic aim of any spiritual quest.

Thank you. I read all of your posts (I look for them – you’re on my list of “look-fors”) and I appreciate your integrity of thought. I *think* it’s OK to return compliments. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.1.i.html – Just the first paragraph gives an introduction to the discourse. It’s a bit tricky reading it, like “The Wealth of Nations” (Scottish style), only Aristotle is Ancient Greek style, translated. Here’s one brief extract:

“But where such arts fall under a single capacity – as bridle-making and the other arts concerned with the equipment of horses fall under the art of riding, and this and every military action under strategy, in the same way other arts fall under yet others – in all of these the ends of the master arts are to be preferred to all the subordinate ends; for it is for the sake of the former that the latter are pursued. It makes no difference whether the activities themselves are the ends of the actions, or something else apart from the activities, as in the case of the sciences just mentioned.”

Admin scales similarly have “subordinate ends”. E.g. “Making a cup of coffee” is an admin scale which is subordinate to “Making Breakfast” and is incorporated into the admin scale “Making Breakfast”, perhaps as a “Project”. Then one makes breakfast to prepare for a work day, and so forth. Kind of amazing or embarrassing to me, it took me a while to see that, reading Aristotle, then it hit me over the head like a sledge-hammer. Aristotle explains how activities (admin scales) relate to one another, not just in one individual, but also among individuals. The point I’d like to make is that Hubbard synthesized it into what I still think is arguably the most powerful collection of a dozen words or so in any language: the admin scale. All admin scales interrelate to each other. It’s a huge complex of admin scales every single day all over the world across all dynamics. That’s what hit me over the head like a sledge hammer, and I’ve been working with it ever since. An admin scale can be used to debug activities, too. So one sees all sorts of irrational acts that can be “admin scaled”, and the flaws in logic as-is-ed. And one can “read” other individual’s admin scales. Even if they themselves have not seen an admin scale, they are operating on one (or many, concurrently).

Aristotle is talking about and addressing good, and happiness, Ethics, the highest achievements, and he specifically notes moderation as a primary virtue, much as Buddha did, some three hundred years earlier. So gradiently, using admin scales (it all becomes intuitive after a pretty short time), one can construct one’s own solid ethics. I’m especially looking at “Policies” at the moment, which I think are a formalization of intentions, which is what the dominant definition of “Purposes” is (just my personal bent at the moment).

Hope you get some mileage out of admin scales, too! This isn’t “an improvement” of tech as some have talked about above here, but a USE of tech.

Nickname, great commentary on the Admin Scale. I couldn’t agree more that it is an incredible tool. To me, the Admin Scale is broad application of KRC the way auditing is application of ARC – the two cornerstones of scientology.

I had a weird feeling about this whole thing immediately. Seemed way to staged to be real.

She was interviewed on Fox and Friends this morning and DID NOT say she is a Trump supporter… she said multiple times that she is promoting “love and togetherness” and made a point to say that it doesn’t matter who you vote for, that’s not what it’s about. Sorry.. but yes it does matter who you vote for.

Mike.. I’m linking your blog to every comment I submit on this subject.

Joy knows that dresses can capture a lot of attention and following. Think JLo’s green Versace, or Hugh Grant’s then girlfriend, Elizabeth Hurley’s Versace safety pin dress which capitulated her to fame. Joy has had many misses but hit the mark using politics this time around. After all, if she went Anti-Trump, she would then have to compete against Meryl Streep or Madonna, so who would really care what she had to think or say about the president, the state of the world or US policies?

Joy’s music apparently went to number one on US itunes after her Grammy appearance in the Trump MAGA dress, and yes, this ‘stat’ will be used by the CoS to promote her and Scientology for giving her “the tools.” We still don’t really know what her politics are, except for those tweets she sent out on election day, she hasn’t verbalized much. She says it’s all about “LOVE” and unity. It will definitely be all about being a Think for yourself, free-thinker, theta, brave bad-ass in the Scientology world. Just as long as good PR comes along with it. Joy had better continue to be a good example, which shouldn’t be too hard for her since she’s already grooved in to being a current young face of Scientology. So let us see how the Cos treats her in the coming years, particularly if she ever voices any doubts or misgivings. You never know, there may be a future Leah Remini in the genesis phase.

Just to say that there are many people who couldn’t care less what Madonna or Meryl Streep have to say about the president, the sate of the world or US policies. However, they have a much bigger platform and their speeches can dominate the news cycles. Joy Villa doesn’t share that, and most likely never will.

Possibly Meryl Streep has a much bigger platform for her political opinions because she has a near-50 year career, actual talent and acting ability, and a down to earth yet ladylike public persona. She’s never been a publicity hound. She garners attention without even trying. She’s the UnKashardian..

I agree with you that Meryl Streep is a good example of a fine woman and person. It’s interesting about the dress in that there are some people who would see that and feel personally insulted, and others, cheered and rallied by it.

I just saw Joy’s interview that she gave on Fox and she seems to be sincere about her message of love and unity, in spite of who she supported or voted for (don’t think it was for Trump). Her dress designer was the one who called her up to collaborate on something after seeing the Women’s March. I think she and Andre believe in their message and it is at least a positive one. Nothing wrong with trying to spread some love and unity.

What’s sad to me is that Joy is young and got tied up into Celebrity status at the church. She is shilling these days for it too, and constantly. I’ve seen her promotions for a few years now. My experience with it is that as she moves up The Bridge to Total Freedom, she will find less and less of that. The deeper you go and the higher you move up the Bridge, the more is expected and demanded from you. Total allegiance, and your sense of love and unity becomes a sense of duty to Church First. Plus, as she gets coddled at the Celebrity Centre, it will be harder for her to break away and have a sense that she did a lot of things on her own and could have done them without Scientology. I think this experience that she had with Andre her friend and dress designer is good in that sense, because it gives her an identity and activity away from the typical CoS one.

I’m sure Mike knew when he wrote this post what the resultant conversation would devolve into. It’s not easy to bifurcate the main point, that being this singer used hot-topic politics the garner media attention and while gaining it, is given a pass by other wise vocal critics that she is a Scientologist. I assure you, in any forum that allows discourse and commentary, if you mention Trump or Antifa it’s going to blow up. My 2 cents on this post is that I do believe there is a bit of hypocrisy by those who are celebrating her tenacity for what is tantamount to wearing Lady Gaga’s infamous meat suit in an actual lions den, referring to the alt-left rich entertainment milieu. I watch a lot of YouTube pundants and I have literally heard them deride Scientology like it was the go-to staple bottom-of-the-barrel reference. These exact same pundants are putting this singer on a bravery pedistal and now giving a full pass on her Scientology beliefs. The side of the isle I, her, or anyone is on, is incidental. This is, at least impart, about hypocrisy, the one thing I can’t stand for. Attack and deride the Scientologist in one context but when that same Scientologist champions your beliefs and idiololgy, it’s suddenly unimportant. Hypocrites, can’t live with them, can’t shoot them.

For myself, I like to judge a dress on an artistic/creative/fashion level, not that I care too much about red carpet dresses. The biggest crime committed here is that the dress is horrendous. At least Lady Gaga’s meat dress or Bjork’s swan dress are interesting and artistically provocative. Joy’s dress is politically (faux) provocative and artistically a non-starter, which is why it fails. Believe me, as much as I disdain Scientology and absolutely despise Trump and every deplorable fool who voted for him, if Joy wore an artistically interesting Trump dress, I would smile in recognition of the gesture.

it’s kind of the same principle that no matter how offensive a comedian’s act may get, I won’t usually be offended if it’s funny. (And I’m pretty hard to offend anyway.)

Despising anyone, based on political beliefs, is to me about as nonsensical as one can get. Opinions differ, life situations are different, a significant portion of the votes had different ideas. So what? Calling people names like “deplorable fools” only displays your close mindedness on the subject. It’s one of the main things I dislike about politics.

I had no idea who this Joy Villa was and I thank you Mike for enlightening me. To me, her full name should be, Joy Shrill for Old Ron, whoops dm and all the daggers Scientology plunges into anyone who dares to say one negative word about them. She will be trotted out as long as she pulls in the bucks. But hey why should she bother wearing any clothes? Just be you Joy and show the world dm & all of you who think you are so OT why you dress in bungee chords and other get ups that make you look even more foolish. And I saw a comment about the Pulitzer Prize and I think under We Can Do Something About It, yes under consideration for a Pulitzer would look very fitting for you Mike. You deserve All Wonderful Awards for giving us this blog everyday. ?

Next up…..Kuba Kha wears a Hillary Speedo
Sells out his Las Vegas show!

I’m betting Joy becomes Miscavige’s go-to when he needs to show how much ‘soul’ Scientology has…..which will lead to Stacey Francis being put out to pasture.

Remember Dave, hell hath no fury like a Stacey scorned

I’m hoping that the people who bought Joy’s ‘album’ will actually listen to it…..I’ll give Joy credit…..she can wear an outfit (not everyone could pull off those ensembles) but the girl can’t sing.

Who knows? Maybe Joy will hear the siren song of real fame and walk away from Scientology? I hope not, I think Joy belongs there with the rest of the deluded, but you never know

It is sad that this will be trumpeted not as Joy’s success, but as David Miscavige’s.
I’m just hoping the new attention pisses off Stacey Francis enough that she gives Leah a call.
Because unlike Joy, Stacey can actually sing

“one of which looks like it was sewed together from snowfence they put at the edge of ski runs to prevent wayward skiers from plunging into the pine trees.” This is now in the running for the funniest thing I have ever read in my life.

It wasn’t funny for scientologist Sonny Bono who could have used scientologist/volunteer minister/celebrity/shill Ms. Joy Villa to be there with that revealing snow fence dress to prevent Sonny’s close encounter with a tree whilst skiing.

Well, there is one side benefit to her wacky promotional scheme – announcing her support for scientology will come off as another shock tactic, like wearing a North Korean outfit or writing love letters to Charles Manson.

Funny, I saw this in the paper and thought, “*That* Joy Villa? How did she get into the Grammy show?”

I guess she can use the bucks – her consort, “Leica Photographer” Thorsten “von” Overgaard is probably getting heavily tapped by the cult for a cut of the $3,000 per person he charges for his workshops. (I often wonder if he has a work visa for the countries he holds those things in…)

It’s possible she didn’t attend the actual show, but merely walked the red carpet, got her pics taken, and went home. I wish I could remember the details, but it used to be possible for has-been actors to do that at the Oscars–if they were members of the Academy, they could show up and make an appearance to prove they were still “somebody,” even if they didn’t have tickets to get in the door.

Villa is also an example of the preferential treatment given to Scientology celebrities.

From what I can tell of how Scientology operates these days, had any regular public member been seen at a party or event wearing the sort of see-through attire that Villa has flaunted in the past, they almost certainly would have been reported for violation of Scientology’s 1950s-era sexual morality, and subject to “ethics” punishment including orders to cease their aberrant and embarrassing behavior.

CofS officials may have determined that Villa’s publicity value merits her exemption from normal “ethics,” but in fact I think she mostly contributes to the increasingly bad impression of Scientology celebrities as horse [penis] blowing (Jenna Elfman), daughter-abandoning and couch-jumping (Tom Cruise) kinds of crazy. Villa may be about the only celebrity left with the lack of discretion to keep flogging her affiliation with Scientology, as I suspect the rest are laying low these days due to Scientology’s deteriorating public image and probably some wise advice from their publicists.

Had never heard of this woman … but hey … she’s just making a living, right? Doin’ whatever it takes … expose yourself … promote Trump … it’s all good if the moolah stat ties up … it’s … it’s … admin tech!!!

It seems there’s a weird relationship between CoS/SO members & the innocent, naive public…or WOGS..on one hand they (wogs) are vilified, wog world is horrid, out of control crazy people but on the other hand – CoS can’t wait to pull them in off the streets – as many as they can for indoctrination…so what’s the deal? Wogs are hated or loved? Or rather hated & needed?
Thank you all for what you do…it’s truly commendable!

Assuming this scientology thing does not fall under the category of fake news, the fact that she went up against the Hollywood Soros Machine is more important to me than whether or not she actually likes Trump. There’s no assurance that the momentary bump in her career will last. In hollywood, the political oppression is so thick that the odds are stacked against her in the long term, so it was extremely brave commentary in bucking the establishment-left oppressors.

Many freedom-fighter in the 60s were just there for the weed and to “stick it to the man”. And well, right now “the man” needs some sticking–because, while this country was founded on religious and political freedom, there is currently a real war on the freedom of expression, and the ability of someone to make a living, regardless of their religious and political affiliations. Right now, “the man” happens to be feminist left-elite smear artists who advocate violence and ruin people’s livelihoods when they don’t agree with your beliefs.

I’m no fan of scientology (believe you me) but, right now, the battle to pick is not the battle on scientology but the battle of freedom of expression. The fact that I’m unsure of the political bent of this blog and whether my post will see daylight among the other comments is a testament to the state of political freedom in this country at present.

It’s not the political bent of this website that makes this sort of comment unwelcome. This blog is about the abuses and lies of scientology.

I’m no fan of scientology (believe you me) but, right now, the battle to pick is not the battle on scientology but the battle of freedom of expression.

Honestly, to claim that “the man” is “feminist left-elite smear artists” is just silly. There is no category of person that is “the problem” other than IGNORANCE. ANd that is found at every echelon in society — and in every religion, race and gender.

I am not interested in starting the typical “conversation/argument” of Republican v. Democrat.

I have found this to be true. Although most of us have political opinions that can of worms is seldom opened here. I see it expressed from time to time, but no one seems interested in attempting to make this blog into a soapbox. Mike seems to keep an eye out to not allow people to stray too far from the stated mission.

QFT “There is no category of person that is “the problem” other than IGNORANCE. And that is found at every echelon in society — and in every religion, race and gender.”

Thanks Mike. I only wish I knew about her early tweet decrying Trump as crazy when I was tweeting yesterday.There is no category of person that is “the problem” other than IGNORANCE. ANd that is found at every echelon in society — and in every religion, race and gender.

Ignorance is indeed the problem. Perhaps it goes a bit deeper, but “ignorance” is a very useful and practical way of putting it. This is why I favor philosophy. Real philosophy, not “modern philosophy”. I favor philosophy in the tradition of logic and reason, of differentiation (and not “political”, nor “semantic”, philosophy which is merely a game of one-up-manship / service facsimile / I win by make wrong).

Your reasoning that this site is about the Co$ and not politics is correct, but JR’s post brings up another symptom of the same disease, the problem of ignorance which you pointed out. The hierarchy of influence is: philosophy and religion, the arts, and the sciences. The world was doing well until Karl Marx infected it with socialism. Some people just can’t stand success.

I hope I’m not unwittingly playing my own service fac here, saying that you and JR are on the same side, each just fighting different symptoms of the same disease. You’re very correct in not mixing the two. I go on about Scientology the original data and philosophy because it seems to me to provide a contrast to it perversion in the Co$.

On the topic, I had no idea Joy Villa was a Co$ member. Thanks for the info. It might be interesting to see how long it takes her to see through the scam, or make whatever use she can of the Co$. I know this isn’t a celebrity site either, but man, some of things some of these women get away with … whoever Lady Gaga is (I don’t follow) … hey, you were the guy who pulled her up as an example!

I read ‘the big three’. By this of course of mean, ‘Something Can Be Done About it’, ‘The Underground Bunker’ and ‘Moving On Up a Little Higher’. It’s amazing how political the latter two have become. Marty Rathbun’s blog is almost entirely a left-right civil war. It seems no matter what topic is posted the comments quickly morph into idiological political rants. It’s often. It’s often not even civil discourse but full on vitriol. To be fair Marty has moved away from posting about Scientology per se, or at least has become more topically eclectic, posting actual political op/ed. But again, even in posts totally unrelated the conversation devolves into unbridled political chaos.

JR, I agree with some of what you say, but I’ll point out that the fact you do not know what the ‘political bent’ of this blog is speaks volumes.

Yes, occasionally people will speak their political
opinions on this blog (both sides), but overall the topic sticks to the abuses of Scientology.

IMO there is no political bent to this blog. I don’t know if this is because Mike keeps it that way by not posting ‘super political’ posts or if the long time posters know that is not the purpose of the blog and simply take their political opinions elsewhere

Occasionally politics and Scientology collide and at those times it is discussed within context

As an aside, I do agree there is an attack on freedom of speech, opinion and expression as you noted. The mere fact that Joy’s dress has had such a reaction is evidence. I think if Joy had worn that dress to Berkeley (for example) it would have been torn off her.

I saw a lot of ‘she can believe whatever she wants’ arguments on various blogs in response to people (me included) pointing out that Joy was a Scientologist. That is where Scientology critics run a fine line. We’re not opposed to her beliefs. We’re opposed to the abuse she supports by being a member of that organization. But unless you really understand what is going on in the Co$, it is difficult to argue that Joy is ‘wrong’ for being a Scientologist.

And I always try to give credit where credit is due….Joy always looks put together, albeit in her own unique way. She can’t sing, but she certainly can wear an outfit. Very few people can pull that kind of stunt and get away with it.

Let’s see if Joy ‘sings’ at Tom Cruise’s next Slavewinds birthday party…..(why does that conjure up a mental picture of a scorned and vengeful Stacey taking control of the the boat and running it into a sandbar as Joy attempts to sing ‘Old Time Rock n Roll’)

There is no use in criticizing her, vilifying her, embarrassing her, or attacking her. She has chosen the wrong side of history, on her own, and she will be remembered for it, forever. I am so sad, legitimately sad, and will never mock her in a “I-know-better-than-her” way. I only hope that the Scelebrities will come to their senses before they embarrass themselves further. This goes for Bart, Tom, John, the female Vulcan, etc.

“Grammy-considered recording artist” is the dumbest thing I’ve heard today. Mike may as well start promoting this blog as “Pulitzer Prize-considered,” because I just considered that it would be cool if it were nominated for an award.

Actually, Mike, as I was reading the blog post I had to look back a couple times to see if it was you who wrote it, or who did. It could have been written by an actual entertainment journalist. Pretty good!

Like Barry, Donald isn’t interested. Fifteen minutes is all you get with the apoplectic ‘trending’ news crowd. ‘Scientology Last’ is a well known worldwide datum. You could try to kiss Omarosa’s butt, however, word is that she is already spoken for.

This is definitely just a cynical PR ploy, Mike, you’re right. She is not a Trump supporter, obviously. She thinks he is crazy, she said so herself. However, I am sure that she has noticed how any person of color with any kind of visibility at all who comes out in support of President Agent Orange gets a lot of buzz for a minute or two. Sad to see a person so willing to sell themselves out for a little publicity, but she seems to regard it as her raison d’etre, and it worked, a lot better than those atrocious dresses she wore in past years. Every mention, every hashtag, every @ on Twitter or Tumblr will raise her “Q rating”, which is the bread and butter for any media wh*re.

She doesn’t care about politics, not really, but she’s gotta hustle up the cash to make her next IAS status! Knowing that, it is quite funny to see the Trumpers flock to support her on Twitter — they think she is one of them.

This is pretty scary. I imagine she will never appeal to the GOP Dominionists like Pence, Conway, Cruz, DeVos and others who basically have an agenda to replace the current government with a Christian biblical theocracy and bring about The Rapture. (if you think that sounds crazy, google them, CNP and start reading. They basically have a white Christian religious agenda they are promoting under cover of the GOP and pretty much control the agenda of that party these days). Although they seem to be chill with the anti-Muslim/anti-gay stance of Putin. So they may look at Co$ in the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” sort of light.

What worries me more are the alt-right Bannonites, who seem to want to remake neo-nazi nationalism into something way cooler and more corporate. They don’t really have too many ideological ties to religion (other than the fake “Christian” cover of the KKK and other older white supremacy groups they ally with.).

These people could be ripe for the recruiting. Especially since they would easily buy into all the fascist tech, spying and autocratic “strong leader” nonsense of both LRH and his Mini Me. Not to mention all the funding at their disposal. This is something to keep an eye on. There are many creepy parallels between Milo Yiannopoulous and DM (except for only one of them being out of the closet). And these folks have an affinity for dramatic conspiracy theories with secret cabals run by outer space aliens. So t wouldn’t take the same level of effort to create the suspension of disbelief necessaary to turn them into hard core fans and members. They are more than halfway there.

Cecy, thank you, because I feel you’re very much spot on. Speaking of Milo Yiannopoulous (sp?) he just posted on Facebook a video of ….guess who…. yes! Who else but Joy Villa? And she was…right again, in her lovely new dress.I got a notice from someone that shared it and like a good little SP I immediately commented that she was a SCIENTOLOGIST. Also added about the tweet above re: voting. I hope that the fact she’s a you-know-what will make a few less people by (or buy) her new alignment with the president.

Sorry, Frodis73 but I don’t think it’s about Trump per se. It’s about having an agenda to shill for Scientology or at least the CoS will take the opportunity to take credit for Joy’s increased “stat” and use this and thus her to their own benefit.

I am not super pro-Trump nor certainly Clinton but I do not believe Republicans want a theocracy…merely a country that respects Christians values higher or as much as any other religion. Our country was founded on these values – in God we trust.
I would not nor have ever joined a cult. Nothing that strips away my independence & beliefs will ever interest me.
I enjoy this site to read comments of former Scientologists & read their thought provoking comments on life they have left behind but strive to save others from the same. If there’s going to be personal opinions on politics or religion, education, the plight of the current & end times, Armeggedon, then I’ll move on.
I’ve enjoyed reading your personal stories but I’m sick & tired of “politics” on this blog, and what is wrong with GOP, their “agenda”, etc. from sports, Grammys, MSM, etc. -geez, can’t Democrats/left just concede they lost & move on..when hapless Obama was Prez people did not act like this…its bizarre.

Wow, if this blog is too political, I think you need to shutter yourself from all media of any description. I try hard to keep this focused on scientology, not on politics. And there are plenty of pro-Trump people that post here.

I must say Mike, that you keep politics out of this blog and for that I commend you. You seem to have been very careful not to put your own political thoughts into today’s post.

I can hardly look at FaceBook anymore as it is so full of hate. No one on the right is going to read what a hard core lefty posts and no one on the left is going to read a righty post. I skip over both of them. I prefer the old FB when there were posts of vacations, sporting events, anniversaries etc. sometimes boring yes, but easier on the blood pressure.

I apologize if my comments seemed too political, but the line between politics and religion is about to get skinnier if the expected GOP legislation goes through to allow religions to actively support political candidates. Whether people like it or not, a good and growing chunk of the GOP party over the last 40 years has had an open association with white Christianity. In fact, there are only a handful of legislators in Congress now that will dissociate themselves from that agenda. Goldwater was the first to warn them about allying with the Christian evangelical right when it happened during the 60’s.

. And please do not take my word for any of this, even though I’ve been studying the movement with some interest for at leastthe last decade. Follow the money. Research candidates and appointees and who is supporting them. Look at their voting records and what their policies support, or the basis of their platforms. The GOP has gone through a huge transformation since even the Reagan years in terms of social policies that align with specific religious ones. And PLEASE look up the Dominionists faction of the evangelicals and their current political players. You may be surprised.

I can and have been equally critical of the other party as well, although it tends to center on politics not religion. It’s just that when I see the policies of one party having a potential positive effect on this particular “religious” organization (and one would have to wonder why Co$ members were encouraged to vote for that party if it did not have some parallel interest served), I tend to be cautionary, or to at least start my due diligence as to why. Otherwise I doubt Co$ would be interested in supporting one party over another.

I am all for separation of church and state, and right now, there is a huge faction of the GOP that is not, regardless of any other agenda, either economic or social, that it claims to support. This is verifiable. And this is not about love, hate or unity. I think it’s about whether or not we are willing to have religious beliefs – from anyone – mixed in with our democratic republic, that our founders took great pains to keep secular.

Hi Barbet – I don’t know how long you’ve been here at this blog but it is usually non political. Oh yes, some here can’t help themselves commenting about how they hate Trump but mainly this blog is about the atrocities of scientology and where us old timers like to come and decompress and bitch.

You might be referring to Ortega’s blog where it has become a political free for all bashing.

MsP – yes, Tony’s site has devolved. I could argue either pro/con but I was interested in what’s happening in CoS…it’s not often one can actually watch a cult die…Tony’s site ventures beyond that into political climate – and it’s distracting.

You can always use the “collapse thread” option on Tony’s blog and not have to see the political talk.

I read Tony & Mike’s blogs every day and sometimes the political stuff gets on my nerves, too. But I wouldn’t ever stop reading either blog because they both work tirelessly to expose the cult of $cientology for what it really is.

Thanks for the info mike. Hadnot paid too much attention to Grammys. Didn’t support trump or Clinton, but thought dress was a cute pun (Trump train) and liked that she went against the crowd. But now I know more about the story. Don’t buy anyone’s iTunes though, so I was safe in that respect!

I have never heard of her or her music. Wearing her gown seems very manipulating to bring attention to her and her music. She probably needs to sell her music to pay her way up the bridge. It is an expensive to be a Scientologist!!!

Tattoos are not manly and they are not lady like. In my opinion which is not being respected here. By either your or Mike to a degree. I meaning me, I personally associate tattoos with low life types. DB’s. Period. I am not changing anything for anybody. 🙂

YEs, it is trolling if you want to say she is a lowlife because she has tattoos and men are lowlifes if they wear earrings. Completely off topic. ANd bound to result in all sorts of responses pointing out you are a neanderthal. Not interested in getting that discussion going.

Wow. Interesting viewpoint ya got there. My sister has two modest, small tattoos which aren’t visible unless she were wearing a bikini or something.

She has run a very successful business for 16 years and makes over $300,000 a year. She raised two fantastic children (one of whom was just accepted to Stanford University) and has been married for 21 years. She spends a lot of her free time doing charity work.

You can buy one at Walmart now. Made in China though. Wait a bit and 2nd hand ones will be on eBay soon enough. Custom made ones are allegedly made in the Ozark Mountains so I heard but the Hillbillies are hard to get past.

Bats are leather clad and drive cool mobiles. Being bird brained is a checksheet requirement in Scientology, no offence intended to our feathered community but they don’t post here that I’ve seen! Too busy soaring to new heights.

[…] We applauded her for the bold move, but since then, I’ve had a change of heart. When it comes to Joy Villa, I’m skeptical. For starters, there are rumors (and proof) that she’s only getting involved politically to advance Scientology. Mike Rinder even wrote about her involvement with the church in his blog. […]

Important Quotes

If the org slumps during this transition period, don't engage in "fund raising"
or "selling postcards" or borrowing money. Just make more income with Scientology.
L Ron Hubbard From HCOPL URGENT ORG PROGRAMMING

"We own a tremendous amount of property. We own a tremendous amount of material and so forth, and it keeps growing.
But that’s not important. When buildings get important to us, for God sakes, some of you born revolutionists will you please blow up central headquarters".
L Ron Hubbard Lecture 31 Dec 1960

"Personal integrity is knowing what you know. What you know is what you know and to have the courage to know and say what you have observed".- LRH from Personal Integrity

"It is necessary to happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists of professing to believe what he does not believe." Thomas Paine

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” - Martin Luther King

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” - Martin Luther King

“There comes a time when silence is betrayal.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

“Communication is the universal solvent” - L Ron Hubbard

“When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.” Thomas Paine

"Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world would do this, it would change the earth." William Faulkner

"The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual's own reason and critical analysis." Dalai Lama